The Public Water Supply District (PWSD) No. 2 of St. Charles County, Mo., has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $5,696 to the U.S. for Clean Air Act Risk Management Program violations related to its use of chlorine gas as a disinfectant at its drinking water treatment facility in Defiance, Mo.
As part of an administrative civil settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 7, PWSD has also agreed to spend at least $80,000 on a supplemental environmental project to hire a consulting engineering firm to evaluate the use of non-chlorine disinfectants at the Defiance facility.
According to an administrative consent agreement filed by EPA in Kansas City, Kan., the agency inspected the Defiance facility in April 2010 and found violations of the federal regulations.
Specifically, the inspection noted that PWSD had not filed a risk management plan with EPA at the proper and most rigorous level required by the regulations. It had failed to document its process safety information and failed to conduct a process hazard analysis.
Under the Act, PWSD was required to take those actions because its facility’s stores of chlorine gas were above the regulatory threshold amount of 2,500 lb.
Source: EPA
